scholarly journals Processing Sentences with Literal versus Figurative Use of Verbs: An ERP Study with Children with Language Impairments, Nonverbal Impairments, and Typical Development

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Luisa Lorusso ◽  
Michele Burigo ◽  
Virginia Borsa ◽  
Massimo Molteni
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Nonverbal Learning Disabilities ◽  
Motor Impairments ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
The Right

Forty native Italian children (age 6–15) performed a sentence plausibility judgment task. ERP recordings were available for 12 children with specific language impairment (SLI), 11 children with nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD), and 13 control children. Participants listened to verb-object combinations and judged them as acceptable or unacceptable. Stimuli belonged to four conditions, where concreteness and congruency were manipulated. All groups made more errors responding to abstract and to congruent sentences. Moreover, SLI participants performed worse than NVLD participants with abstract sentences. ERPs were analyzed in the time window 300–500 ms. SLI children show atypical, reversed effects of concreteness and congruence as compared to control and NVLD children, respectively. The results suggest that linguistic impairments disrupt abstract language processing more than visual-motor impairments. Moreover, ROI and SPM analyses of ERPs point to a predominant involvement of the left rather than the right hemisphere in the comprehension of figurative expressions.

scholarly journals Activating the Right Hemisphere Through Left-Hand Muscle Contraction Improves Novel Metaphor Comprehension

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tala Noufi ◽  
Maor Zeev-Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Metaphor Comprehension ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Semantic Judgment ◽  
Metaphoric Language ◽  
Invasive Method ◽  
The Right

The neurotypical brain is characterized by left hemisphere lateralization for most language processing. However, the right hemisphere plays a crucial part when it is required to bring together seemingly unrelated concepts into meaningful expressions, such as in the case of novel metaphors (unfamiliar figurative expressions). The aim of the current study was to test whether it is possible to enhance novel metaphor comprehension through an easy, efficient, and non-invasive method – intentional contraction of the left hand’s muscles, to activate the motor and sensory areas in the contralateral hemisphere. One hundred eighteen neurotypical participants were asked to perform a semantic judgment task involving two-word expressions of four types: literal, conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, or unrelated, while squeezing a rubber ball with their right hand, left hand, or not at all. Results demonstrated that left-hand contraction improved novel metaphor comprehension, as participants were more accurate and quicker in judging them to be meaningful. The findings of the present work provide a simple and efficient method for boosting right hemisphere activation, which can be used to improve metaphoric language comprehension. This method can aid several populations in which right hemisphere function is not fully established, and who struggle with processing figurative language, such as adolescents and individuals on the autistic spectrum.

The Structural Language Network

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela D. Friederici ◽  
Noam Chomsky
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Fiber Tracts ◽  
White Matter Fiber Tracts ◽  
The Right

An adequate description of the neural basis of language processing must consider the entire network both with respect to its structural white matter connections and the functional connectivities between the different brain regions as the information has to be sent between different language-related regions distributed across the temporal and frontal cortex. This chapter discusses the white matter fiber bundles that connect the language-relevant regions. The chapter is broken into three sections. In the first, we look at the white matter fiber tracts connecting the language-relevant regions in the frontal and temporal cortices; in the second, the ventral and dorsal pathways in the right hemisphere that connect temporal and frontal regions; and finally in the third, the two syntax-relevant and (at least) one semantic-relevant neuroanatomically-defined networks that sentence processing is based on. From this discussion, it becomes clear that online language processing requires information transfer via the long-range white matter fiber pathways that connect the language-relevant brain regions within each hemisphere and between hemispheres.

Bihemispheric Language: How the Two Hemispheres Collaborate in the Processing of Language

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman D. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Figures Of Speech ◽  
Language Functions ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Level Of Understanding ◽  
The Right

Speech production in most people is strongly lateralized to the left hemisphere (LH), but language understanding is generally a bilateral activity. At every level of linguistic processing that has been investigated experimentally, the right hemisphere (RH) has been found to make characteristic contributions, from the processing of the affective aspects of intonation, through the appreciation of word connotations, the decoding of the meaning of metaphors and figures of speech, to the understanding of the overall coherency of verbal humour, paragraphs and short stories. If both hemispheres are indeed engaged in linguistic decoding and both processes are required to achieve a normal level of understanding, a central question concerns how the separate language functions on the left and right are integrated. This chapter reviews relevant studies on the hemispheric contributions to language processing and the role of interhemispheric communications in cognition.

Language in Italian children with Down syndrome and with specific language impairment.

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Caselli ◽  
Laura Monaco ◽  
Manuela Trasciani ◽  
Stefano Vicari
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Children With Down Syndrome ◽  
Italian Children

The Impact of Emphatic Stress on Novel Word Learning by Children With Specific Language Impairment

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1444-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Ellis Weismer ◽  
Linda J. Hesketh
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Stress Effects ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Novel Word Learning ◽  
The Impact

This investigation examined the influence of emphatic stress on children's novel word learning. Forty school-age children participated in this study, including 20 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 20 children with normal language (NL) development. Results indicated that there were no significant stress effects for comprehension or recognition of novel words (for which all children demonstrated relatively high levels of performance); however, children in both groups exhibited significantly better production of words that had been presented with emphatic stress than with neutral stress. These findings are discussed within a limited capacity framework of language processing.

An Examination of Verbal Working Memory Capacity in Children With Specific Language Impairment

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1249-1260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Ellis Weismer ◽  
Julia Evans ◽  
Linda J. Hesketh
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Word Recall ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Specific Language

This study investigated verbal working memory capacity in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The task employed in this study was the Competing Language Processing Task (CLPT) developed by Gaulin and Campbell (1994). A total of 40 school-age children participated in this investigation, including 20 with SLI and 20 normal language (NL) age-matched controls. Results indicated that the SLI and NL groups performed similarly in terms of true/false comprehension items, but that the children with SLI evidenced significantly poorer word recall than the NL controls, even when differences in nonverbal cognitive scores were statistically controlled. Distinct patterns of word-recall errors were observed for the SLI and NL groups, as well as different patterns of associations between CLPT word recall and performance on nonverbal cognitive and language measures. The findings are interpreted within the framework of a limited-capacity model of language processing.

Electrophysiological Measures of Language Processing in Bilinguals

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 994-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Mado Proverbio ◽  
Barbara Čok ◽  
Alberto Zani
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Left Hemisphere ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Brain Plasticity ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
The Right

The aim of the present study was to investigate how multiple languages are represented in the human brain. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from right-handed polyglots and monolinguals during a task involving silent reading. The participants in the experiment were nine Italian monolinguals and nine Italian/Slovenian bilinguals of a Slovenian minority in Trieste; the bilinguals, highly fluent in both languages, had spoken both languages since birth. The stimuli were terminal words that would correctly complete a short, meaningful, previously shown sentence, or else were semantically or syntactically incorrect. The task consisted in deciding whether the sentences were well formed or not, giving the response by pressing a button. Both groups read the same set of 200 Italian sentences to compare the linguistic processing, while the bilinguals also received a set of 200 Slovenian sentences, comparable in complexity and length, to compare the processing of the two languages within the group. For the bilinguals, the ERP results revealed a strong, left-sided activation, reflected by the N1 component, of the occipito-temporal regions dedicated to orthographic processing, with a latency of about 150 msec for Slovenian words, but bilateral activation of the same areas for Italian words, which was also displayed by topographical mapping. In monolinguals, semantic error produced a long-lasting negative response (N2 and N4) that was greater over the right hemisphere, whereas syntactic error activated mostly the left hemisphere. Conversely, in the bilinguals, semantic incongruence resulted in greater response over the left hemisphere than over the right. In this group, the P615 syntactical error responses were of equal amplitude on both hemispheres for Italian words and greater on the right side for Slovenian words. The present findings support the view that there are inter- and intrahemispheric brain activation asymmetries when monolingual and bilingual speakers comprehend written language. The fact that the bilingual speakers in the present study were highly fluent and had acquired both languages in early infancy suggests that the brain activation patterns do not depend on the age of acquisition or the fluency level, as in the case of late, not-so-proficient L2 language learners, but on the functional organization of the bilinguals' brain due to polyglotism and based on brain plasticity.

Lateralised semantic and indirect semantic priming effects in people with schizophrenia

1998 ◽  
Vol 172 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Weisbrod ◽  
Sabine Maier ◽  
Sabine Harig ◽  
Ulrike Himmelsbach ◽  
Manfred Spitzer
Keyword(s):  
Left Hemisphere ◽  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Striking Difference ◽  
Semantic Associations ◽  
The Right

BackgroundIn schizophrenia, disturbances in the development of physiological hemisphere asymmetry are assumed to play a pathogenetic role. The most striking difference between hemispheres is in language processing. The left hemisphere is superior in the use of syntactic or semantic information, whereas the right hemisphere uses contextual information more effectively.MethodUsing psycholinguistic experimental techniques, semantic associations were examined in 38 control subjects, 24 non-thought-disordered and 16 thought-disordered people with schizophrenia, for both hemispheres separately.ResultsDirect semantic priming did not differ between the hemispheres in any of the groups. Only thought-disordered people showed significant indirect semantic priming in the left hemisphere.ConclusionsThe results support: (a) a prominent role of the right hemisphere for remote associations; (b) enhanced spreading of semantic associations in thought-disordered subjects; and (c) disorganisation of the functional asymmetry of semantic processing in thought-disordered subjects.

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